Pride Week – A Time For Tolerance

It's currently World Pride Week (with the main march happening this year in Toronto), and a time in which many local gay pride marches also take place around the world. Such parades are well-known, at least in the west, for their fun atmosphere, with dancing, drinking, colorful clothing, and people getting sprayed with water pistols. But Pride Week also offers us an opportunity for a deeper reflection on issues of morality and human rights.

It's not particularly controversial to say that many people around the world are not big fans of alternative lifestyles that include homosexuality, bisexuality, transgendered people, or any of the many other identities that fall under the Pride banner. In Russia, gay pride marches are often attacked by extreme right-wingers, with collusion from the police. But even in supposedly tolerant countries like the US, a large number of people in a significant proportion of the country are at best uncomfortable with LGBT people, and often actively hostile to them. Sometimes this is for religious reasons, sometimes because of arguments about morality, and sometimes simply because of a visceral personal feeling with no real reason to back it up.

Most people reading this blog live in free countries, where they allowed to think whatever they like about anyone they choose, and so holding these opinions is fine, even if it is unjustified. But we must always remember that our opinions are simply that – opinions, which should have no bearing on whether or not LGBT people receive basic human rights.

In places like Uganda (and, again, even the US and Russia) many gay people are in fear for their lives and can be sent to prison or even killed for their sexuality. Whatever your beliefs about LGBT people, this is undoubtedly wrong – nobody deserves to die simply because of who they have sex with. Lesser examples of discrimination also abound – gay couples being turned away by motels or inns, for example; or, of course, the struggle over allowing gay men and women to marry. Again, whether we officially call it marriage or not, it would be wrong to stop LGBT people from expressing their love for one another and receiving the many benefits that the state gives to married couples.

These are basic human rights to equal treatment and dignity that we are talking about, and we must support these rights for all people if we are to support them for anyone. If we start to say that some people are not worthy of such rights because of their sexuality, then we can have no complaints when others start saying we do not deserve the same rights – perhaps because of our race, our gender, or our religion.

Homosexuality is not a choice, nor is it a disease, and it is certainly not something we should fear or try to eradicate or hide from view. It has been a part of society since history began (read anything about the Ancient Greeks if you don't believe me!), and we need to start treating it in the sensible, mature manner which it deserves. We can start by saluting the tolerant countries and communities that have taken in gay Ugandan refugees who fear for their lives, who have worked with vulnerable young people to stamp out homophobic bullying, and who are happy to welcome and take part in the pride parades of their towns and cities. And we can wish everyone, gay, straight, or anything else, a happy World Pride Week and a tolerant, understanding future.

Is religion the Problem – Or is it Power and Resources?

Almost every country in the world has some kind of human rights issue to be dealt with. They range from the huge atrocities of places like North Korea and South Sudan to the seemingly smaller but still highly important issues over migrants and voting rights in western countries. Sometimes it can be difficult for even the most conscientious reader and thinker to keep up with all of the issues taking place around the world at any one time. Consequently, the plight of the Rohingya minority in Burma has tended to be overlooked, and when it is focused upon, however briefly, has also tended to be misunderstood.

Many would argue that the Rohingya are the subject of an almost genocidal hatred from other, more populous groups in Burmese society. They have been attacked and killed in large numbers and had entire villages burned down. They have been shelled by their own government, who accuse them of being rebels or outlaws, and they have been forced into camps for internally displaced peoples. And in many of the articles discussing this issue, one fact is made to stand out above all the rest – the Rohingya are Muslim, and Burma is a primarily Buddhist country.

The attacks on Rohingya have thus been seen as an example of religious hatred – particularly noticeable as it is perpetrated by followers of the Buddhist religion which is usually so strongly associated with peace and passivity in the west (although this is an image that has previously been shown to not always be justified, with the violence that the Buddhist government of Sri Lanka pursued against the Tamil population). This has been a common viewpoint because this is the simplistic way in which many of us in the west view the rest of the world – if there is trouble, it must be because the people have some kind of irrational hatred for one another, because of ethnicity or religion or some kind of historical grievance.

In truth, there is some religious aspect to the fighting in Burma, and it is certainly true that some Buddhist monks who should behave better have roused the population in pointless anger against their Muslim neighbours. But to only focus on this aspect of the conflict misses out a number of important dimensions that we often don’t like to talk about – including corporate power, natural resources, and money.

The Rohingya live in Arakan state, also known as Rakhine after another ethnic group that live in the region (although they are Buddhist rather than Muslim). This coastal region, which is next to the equally troubled Chittagong district of Bangladesh, happens to be rich in natural resources, including offshore oil and gas. This has made it an attractive area for international investors from countries like China, who want to build oil and gas pipelines to help support their large population and its need for energy. This pipeline is due to make a lot of money for the autocratic Burmese government, but the Rohingya and their desire to hold on to their land stands in the way of their desires. Thus, they have played the Buddhist and Muslims against each other, and used the confusion and conflict as a way to steal in and grab the land they want.

This story tells us a number of things: that despite the recent positive signs coming out of the country, Burma is a long way from overcoming the troubles it has faced in recent years; that we need to pay as much attention to these far-flung corners of the world as we do to places that are more central to our concerns, like Ukraine; and that rather than immediately dismissing conflict as religious or ethnic, we should always look deeper and ask ourselves – who stands to make money from this fighting? Deep down, conflict is almost always related to the desire of the rich to exploit the poor, and the Rohingya case, despite having some religious elements, is really no different.

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The hypocrisy of humanitarianism

A few days ago, the UN released a long-awaited report on human rights abuses in North Korea. It comes as little surprise to hear that the government of the Hermit Kingdom is abusing its own citizens, but the actual details of that abuse remain sobering. Collective punishment continues (though the report found it isn’t as widespread as initially believed), with entire families imprisoned for the crimes of a single member; freedom of speech is non-existent; hunger is rife, partially due to the poor state of the North Korean economy, but also because of the government reserving food for the most ‘useful’ citizens and the army; freedom of movement is severely constrained, with access to the relatively luxurious capital of Pyongyang only available to those who show loyalty to the party; and, of course, there are the labour camps – unimaginably grim places in which ‘enemies’ of the regime are worked to death, starved, beaten, tortured, and forced to kill their own children. The UN have even compared the crimes of the regime to those of the Nazis.

At the moment, and perhaps for the next week or two, there will be outrage in the western newspapers and the governments of Europe and North America will make statements condemning Kim Jong-un and his fellow leaders. The North Korean leaders are committing some of the gravest crimes against humanity ever seen, and the USA and others must be seen to stand up against them. But what will be done to actually change the situation for ordinary North Koreans? Despite continual claims by the west to humanitarian goals and a desire to spread democracy, nothing will be done to aid this slowly dying country.

Humanitarian intervention has, of course, happened before – some countries have been deemed to be behaving so badly towards their population that the west has no choice but to get involved and set things straight. Curiously, these countries always tend to be the ones with the most oil – Iraq, Libya, possibly Syria in the future – or the ones which crossed a line and attacked a superpower – such as Afghanistan. This is, of course, just a coincidence – there’s no way that decisions on humanitarian intervention would be based on the profit and benefits that could accrue to the west, because that wouldn’t be a very humanitarian way of looking at things, would it?

Truthfully, North Korea’s leaders know they can continue on their current path without facing the consequences of military attack or a withdrawal of food aid. Korea has no oil, and few major natural resources in general, so the west has no pressing need to bring it onside. It also has the backing of a superpower, China, and is at least tolerated by another member of the UN Security Council, Russia. Ultimately, intervening in North Korea would bring no benefits and a whole lot of hassle to the west, so I’m sure we’ll find that the lives of North Koreans are not as important as the lives of the Iraqis and Afghans we ‘liberated’ from their dictatorships.

Once again, this seems like an example of the hypocrisy of western governments – preaching humanitarian aims while really only considering the geopolitical economics of profit and loss for themselves. Those governments need to eventually decide what it is they really stand for – either the lives of the unprofitable North Koreans are as important as those of the oil-rich Iraqis, or they’re not. It’s time for the west to be honest about its values, and admit that they sometimes have to put ethics aside in the name of politics.

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